A Fresh Twist to a Knot
by Mousme
Summary: Dean gets cursed with, well, pregnancy. Sort of. The results are not pretty.


Title: **A Fresh Twist to a Knot, Which I Do Not Wish to Untie**

Summary: Dean gets cursed with, well, pregnancy. Sort of. The results are not pretty.

Disclaimer: I think the boys are very grateful they aren't mine. Look at what I'd do to them otherwise!

Wordcount: 10,745

Warnings: Crack! And OMG WTF, mpreg. I know. I have no explanation. If it's any consolation it's not really mpreg. Sort of, but not really. Swearing. Lots and lots of swearing!

Neurotic Author's Note #1: Uh, so, the other day this crackish conversation popped up in my head, and then it wouldn't leave me alone, so I decided to just write the story and exorcise it from my mind once and for all. Then it turned into this. IDEK. /o\ I have NO idea why I wrote this. I don't even really like mpreg. I never read it, and the idea kind of gives me the heebie-jeebies, and GOD FANDOM WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?

Neurotic Author's Note #2: This is kind of an AU, I guess. It's not set in any particular season and mostly ignores everything about canon. So please don't expect anything relevant to canon.

Neurotic Author's Note #3: This fic is unbeta'd. I am posting it now before I chicken out and let it languish on my hard drive forever.

Neurotic Author's Note #4: So, uh, yeah. It's crack, but it because it's me it actually turned a little sad and angsty. Someone (I forget who your name, dear commenter, sorry!) described my writing the other day as "flangsty," which is apparently a combination of fluff and angst, and I think that pretty much describes this fic. So.

* * *

It starts off innocently enough, because that's the way these things always happen. One minute they're torching a witch's altar to prevent her from keeping up her annoying little tendency to meddle in the town's love affairs in various ways, including making one guy both sterile and impotent ("It's just wrong, Sam! Indecent!"), and the next she's somehow got free showering Dean with some sort of powder and chanting before Sam can get to her and subdue her. She reacts like a scalded cat, hissing and spitting and clawing at Sam, making him seriously consider breaking their 'we don't kill humans' rule, but good sense wins out and he eventually gets her trussed up and tied to a chair, while Dean curses fluently in the background, trying to get the powder out of his clothes by brushing it off a tad too enthusiastically.

"What did you do?"

The witch glares at him, then smirks. "Nothing harmful."

Dean sneezes, still brushing ineffectually at the powder. "Whatever, I'm fine. Look, lady, just quit screwing around with nature, okay? Love shouldn't be forced, and you definitely shouldn't mess with a guy's junk! I know the power makes you feel all good and crap, but eventually some other witch comes around and screws with you, and the next thing you know you're spitting out your teeth in the sink and bleeding to death on your bathroom floor." He sneezes again, and swears. "God, what the fuck did you put in this?"

"Mandrake, among other things," she keeps smirking. "Don't worry, I promise I didn't do anything to screw with your—"

"I swear to God, if you even so much as allude to my junk, there will be consequences!"

She rolls her eyes, but subsides.

"Right," Sam isn't sure how this got so out of hand, but it's time to bring the situation under control. "We're going to leave you here, and when we're well out of range we'll leave an anonymous tip with 911 so someone will come get you. If we ever get wind of your practising again, we'll have to come back, and, well... look, just don't make us come back, okay?"

She snorts, but he thinks he's made his point perfectly clear. A hasty exit is always the best strategy in situations like that, and after a quick call to 911 made from a public phone booth, they put as many miles between them and the small town as possible, and that's the end of that.

* * *

After a shower and a good night's sleep, it's like nothing happened, and they carry on as usual. Sam hunkers down in the front seat, resigned to the fact that not twenty-four hours have passed and Dean has already found them a hunt, and it's about a million miles away.

"You couldn't have found something closer?"

"Quit grousing, Samantha. It's not like we've got anywhere else to be."

"I just think we should stay in one place until we've figured out what that witch did to you."

Dean rolls his eyes. "I'm fine. Whatever she did, she obviously didn't finish it, because I feel just fine, and curses are pretty much immediate, right?"

"Usually," Sam concedes grudgingly. In fact, he can't think of a curse that didn't start the moment the incantation was done. Dean is right: whatever it was, it obviously didn't work.

They're both getting a little too old for cross-country trips that involve spending fifteen hours in the car every day, Sam thinks by the end of the third day. His back and legs keep cramping up, and Dean has been getting steadily bitchier as time goes on, picking fights over seemingly meaningless crap. When he's not bitching, he's lapsed into a gloomy silence that's even worse, as though he's mulling over every single crappy thing that's ever happened or been said to him in his life, and nothing Sam does can snap him out of it.

"You sick or something?"

"No."

Sam huffs a sigh. It's not like Dean would give him a truthful answer anyway. "Whatever. Remind me to pick you up some Midol or something next time we stop. If we ever stop again."

"Bitch."

"Pot. Kettle. Black."

"Dude, you're screwing up our dynamic. You can't change the script like that!"

"Then pull over at a motel so I can get some sleep in a horizontal position for once."

"Fine. God."

Four days later, Sam wakes up to the sound of Dean puking in the motel bathroom. They're still an entire day's drive away from the hunt. He slips out of bed, goes to lean in the doorway.

"Not sick, huh?" he asks sympathetically.

"Fuck you," Dean manages in-between heaves.

"I'll go get you some ginger ale from the machine."

Dean spends the next three hours alternating between dry-heaving, puking up ginger ale, and curled up on his bed, vocally praying for death. Sam leaves long enough to pick up some Pepto Bismol at the local drugstore, a twelve-pack of ginger ale cans, and the makings of dry toast and chicken broth. Stomach flu sucks, no matter which way you look at it, and while he's usually the first to make fun of Dean when he's sick, they have an unspoken agreement that stomach flu is neutral ground for brotherly teasing.

By the time evening comes around, Dean is significantly improved, and Sam allows himself to be cautiously optimistic that it might just be a twenty-four hour bug. He puts up with Dean's bitching about the toast and broth, but they both stay down without too much difficulty, and Dean spends the evening propped up on pillows, munching contentedly on a piece of toast and watching a rerun of John Carpenter's 'The Thing.' Sam settles on the bed next to him, and helps himself to a piece of toast, because eating real food in front of Dean will, he knows from experience, either end in Dean puking more or else making him wear the food.

Dean finally gives in to sleep before the end of the movie, slumping against Sam's shoulder, and Sam resigns himself to having to spend the next day on the road if Dean is feeling even marginally better.

* * *

They're back on the road the next day, in spite of the fact that Dean rids his stomach of any trace of dry toast and ginger ale that might still be there. It's all Sam can do to convince him to sip water and, on one notable occasion, some Gatorade, for the entire day. They crash at a motel long before the sun goes down, and Dean spends most of the time asleep, not even bothering to switch on the television. Normally Sam would worry, but there's no fever, no symptoms apart from the puking, or at least no symptoms that Dean is admitting to. He surreptitiously presses a hand to Dean's forehead while he's asleep, but there's nothing, not even a trace of excess heat.

Dean spends the following three days alternating between being nauseous, throwing up, and being really, really cranky. The puking is at its worst in the morning, tapering off toward the end of the day, but sometimes it resurfaces with no warning, and finally he concedes defeat and agrees with Sam that they should stay put until whatever it is has passed. Sure, there's a hunt to go on, but it looks like a pretty standard haunting that can certainly be handled by someone else if needs be.

When it's been a week with no visible sign of improvement but no actual deterioration, either (except for the fact that Dean's looking a little haggard from not being able to eat as much), Sam allows himself first to worry, and then to get suspicious. He leaves Dean to take another nap, and does what he does best, which is research. A couple of hours and an irritated phone call from Dean later, and he's heading toward the local drugstore with grim determination, suspicion growing in his mind about what might be actually going on. He returns, purchases in hand, and braces for the storm he knows awaits him.

Predictably, Dean is horrified. "Dude, I am _not_ peeing on a stick!"

"Hey, women do it all the time, and you don't even have to worry about your aim."

"Fuck you, Sam! And fuck this!"

Sam marshals every ounce of patience he can muster. "It's just one time, Dean. At least if I'm wrong, you can hold it over me for the rest of our lives, okay? Just humour me."

Dean snatches the pregnancy test with an injured air. "I cannot believe that I get the stomach flu for a couple of days and you somehow come up with a _fertility curse_," he declares to the ceiling. "There's no such thing! And this is stupid, for the record. Of all the crazy, whacked-out theories you've ever come up with..." he keeps railing at Sam even through the closed door of the bathroom, and Sam resolutely does not think about what he's doing in there. "This is jacked" Dean concludes, coming back out and wagging the test in Sam's direction.

"Dude, could you maybe not shove that thing that you just peed on in my face?"

"Sam, I just peed on a stick. For you. So you had fucking better well put up with it. Anyway," Dean stops mid-rant, "what am I supposed to do now?"

Sam grins. "Now we wait. And you're supposed to put it on a flat surface."

"What? How long?" Dean steps back into the bathroom and lays the test down next to the sink.

"Twenty minutes. Didn't you read the instructions?"

"No, jackass. That's your department. What are we supposed to do for twenty minutes?"

Sam shoves a book on witchcraft into Dean's hands, because he knows that he's just asking for trouble if he expects Dean to entertain himself for twenty minutes. It's not long enough for a TV show, so it means that Dean will inevitably find a way to irritate him for twenty minutes, possibly by flicking things at him, or putting the porn previews on loop on the television, or any number of other possibilities. Dean's imagination in that department is boundless.

* * *

"The test is wrong."

"No, I really don't think it is."

"It's wrong," Dean repeats flatly. "It can't possibly be right. There's no way."

"We could do another one. They come in packs of two," Sam suggests helpfully, earning himself a scowl.

"No."

"So you admit it's right."

"I am not peeing on another stick and waiting around for another wrong answer!"

"Dean..."

"No, Sam! There is no such thing as a pregnancy curse, or a fertility curse, or whatever the fuck! And even if there was, it definitely wouldn't work on me. You know why?"

Sam lifts his hands in a helpless gesture as Dean paces, pregnancy test still clutched in one hand, lending a slightly ridiculous emphasis to his words. He doesn't answer, though, because that'll just set Dean off even more.

"Because I am a _guy_, Sam! A man! Men don't get pregnant, unless you missed that particular part of sex ed when we were in school!"

"No, I was there."

"I don't have a vagina, Sam!"

"I know that," Sam tries very hard not to flinch at that particular mental image.

"Also? No uterus! Where would the baby live, Sam? Tell me that!"

Sam shrugs. "I don't know?" he offers.

"Nowhere! Because this is all wrong! I don't have a fucking birth canal, either! You can't give birth to a baby through a dick!" Dean stops pacing and brandishes the pregnancy test menacingly. "Can you?"

"Uh, no?"

"That's right, you can't! I am fully and entirely unequipped for this, in all meaningful ways of the word! Do I look like I have boobs to you?"

"There's no good answer to this, is there?"

"God dammit, this isn't a trick question! The answer is no! No again! No boobs! Not even vestigial whatever-the-fuck... just no! There is no fucking possibility of lactation here, do you get it? I can't possibly have this sort of shit going on. I can't be pregnant, because if I was then I would have to, I don't know, sit down with myself and talk about the future, because apparently I'm the fucking father of the kid as well! It's not even a baby, it's an embryo, and discussions happen about embryos that usually involve really horrific words like 'abortion,' and I do not want to think about how some doctor would even go about doing that when I've got the fucking wrong plumbing to begin with!" Dean starts pacing again, red-faced and more than a little wild-eyed.

"Dean..."

"No! I know what you're going to say and I will absolutely not calm the fuck down. This is jacked! I am not pregnant! There is no such thing!"

"I don't think you're actually pregnant, if it's any consolation."

Dean squawks. "What? You mean you made me go through this ridiculous rigamarole for kicks? I am going to kill you."

Sam backs up hurriedly and puts both beds between them. "No no, that's not what I meant. I just meant that it's a curse, right? The witch used a variant of a fertility spell to get a woman pregnant on you, and mandrake root as a material component to make sure it took. So, uh... I think maybe your body sort of maybe _thinks_ it's pregnant?"

Dean stares at him. "How is that an improvement?"

Sam shrugs. "No having to give birth through your dick?"

He spends the next fifteen minutes defending himself against his brother's attempts to force-feed him the pregnancy test.

* * *

Dean spends the next ten days puking at irregular intervals while Sam tries to figure out a way to reverse the curse, or spell, or whatever it is. They call Bobby, and Dean spends the rest of the day sputtering indignantly after Bobby just about bursts a gut laughing. Sam, who's been very, very good about not mocking Dean too much about this latest downturn in the infamous Winchester streak of bad luck —especially seeing how miserable the phantom morning sickness is making him— finds it increasingly hard not to let Bobby's hysterical chortling get to him, and flees for the sanctuary of the local library and free wireless before his brother murders him in his sleep.

Sam's sympathy increases a fair bit when Dean spontaneously discovers he can no longer deal with the smell of coffee, or stomach bacon or cheeseburgers or anything remotely involving meat. Just the smell sends him running for the nearest toilet. He buys an economy-sized packet of crackers and as much ginger ale as he can carry, and then starts improvising, trying to find stuff that'll make Dean less miserable.

"What are these?" Dean holds up the package, scrunching up his face.

"Sea bands. They're supposed to help with morning sickness. It's an acupressure thing. You're supposed to find the Nei-Kuan point on your wrist and place the plastic stud there."

"Isn't that some sort of Japanese porn thing?"

"No. Here," Sam reaches for his hands, ignoring Dean's attempts to swat him away. "You put three fingers on your wrist like that... Dean, quit squirming and let me help! Okay," he slips the bands over Dean's wrists. "There you go."

"I feel stupid. They're like jogging bands, and I don't jog."

"Just give it a chance, okay?"

"Fine, but only because I'm desperate." Dean flops back on the bed, drapes an arm over his eyes. "This sucks. Have you figured out a way to fix it yet?"

"Not one that doesn't involve going back to the witch and having her work something else, which she can't do anyway because we wrecked her altar, and we told her not to practice witchcraft anymore."

"I'd be willing to make an exception," Dean mutters.

"Still, no altar, no reverse spell."

"Oh, God. Please just shoot me now and put me out of my misery?"

"Have some ginger ale instead," Sam cracks open a can, and pulls open his laptop. After a few minutes he glances up, and sees that the tension has drained from Dean's body, and he's sitting up cautiously. "Feel better?"

Dean grins. "Holy shit, Sammy, these things are awesome! I am never taking them off again!"

"Um, ew. I'll buy you a spare set."

"You're the best, Sammy. Now go fetch me a cheeseburger."

Sam smacks him. "Either I get you a cheeseburger or I keep figuring out a way to make you not pregnant."

"I'm not pregnant, dammit!"

"Close enough as makes no difference."

"Come on," Dean wheedles. "I'll even spring for one of those complicated salads you like so much. Please, Sammy? I've been puking for, like, two weeks straight. I'm wasting away!"

"Uh-huh. That's why you've had to loosen your belt by a notch."

"Fuck you."

"Fine, I'll get you a cheeseburger. That means you're doing research until I get back."

"Hey, for once it doesn't feel like my stomach lining's trying to rip free from my insides. I will research until the cows come home!"

"Now there's a mental image I didn't need. Try to stay out of trouble, okay?"

Dean gives him a thumbs up, dragging the laptop over to himself, and fidgeting with the wrist bands. Sam sighs, and heads out in search of the nearest takeout joint.

* * *

"Breaking into a clinic, Sam? Really?"

"Dean, just shut up if you're not going to actively help me break in, okay?"

"Fine," Dean folds his arms and leans against the wall by the door whose lock Sam is currently attempting to pick. "You do realize I'm not actually pregnant, right? It's just, uh, some weird thing that makes me feel that way. And we're going to fix it, anyway. I don't need 'pre-natal care' or whatever," he makes air-quote gestures with his index fingers to emphasize his point. "This is overkill, even for you."

"I just want to make sure everything's okay, okay?"

"There's no baby in here, you know."

"I know, but you're still... you still have symptoms, or whatever, and it's been over two months, so I think we might be in this for the long haul. You need to be checked out, just to make sure nothing's wrong." Dean snorts, and he amends himself hastily. "I mean, nothing apart from the curse. Within the curse's parameters. I don't know, I'm winging it here, okay? Besides, we're running low on supplies, and I don't want to be out of the stronger painkillers the next time some poltergeist throws me down a flight of stairs, or the next time you break your ankle falling into a grave."

"That was one time!"

The door swings open after a moment, and Sam makes short work of the clinic's alarm system. He steers Dean by an elbow, and Dean lets him, rolling his eyes to show just what he thinks of Sam's latest plan. Sam feels justified in his anxiety, though. In another two weeks, Dean will have finished what is essentially the first trimester of a completely normal pregnancy. Except for the fact that he's a guy and isn't meant to be pregnant, ever. The whole thing is surreal, and ten weeks in it's still not feeling any more normal.

"You think there's a restroom anywhere here?"

"What?"

"I gotta tap a kidney."

"Again? Dean, this isn't exactly the time."

Dean shrugs. "It's not like I have a choice in the matter."

"Didn't you go, like, an hour ago?"

"What, are you timing me now?"

Sam rolls his eyes. "No. Look, we'll see if we can find one inside. I'm sure they have a restroom."

"Awesome."

He leaves Dean to sort out his bladder issues —Sam doesn't really want to even begin to think about that too hard— and goes in search of the ultrasound equipment. He's been researching this for days, medical textbooks and youtube videos and everything else he's been able to think of, and he's reasonably sure he can make this work. Now he just has to convince Dean to drop his pants (or at least undo his belt and zipper) and get up on an examining table designed for women. Piece of cake.

"No. Absolutely not. Sam, there are _stirrups_ on that thing! Stirrups!"

"You don't have to use them. Come on, Dean. I need to figure out what's going on, and this is the best way to do it." Sam is fiddling with the monitor, fussing with the transducer, trying to apply what he's read to the actual object, and hoping that he won't screw this up too badly. "Please?" he turns pleading eyes on his brother, and grins at the moment Dean gives up. He pats the table. "Up you come. And, uh, you're going to have to take off your pants."

"Jesus Christ," Dean groans, dropping his jeans in a heap on the floor. "Why can't you just concentrate on getting rid of the curse? I am not going to take goddamn folic acid supplements or whatever. What is that?" he asks, raising his head off the examination table.

"Gel. It's water-based, it'll wash right off. It's to make sure there aren't any pockets of air between the transducer and your skin."

"I don't think I understood half of that. You better not squirt that cold crap all over me! Hey!" Dean squawks and squirms as Sam does, in fact, squirt the cold gel all over his stomach, pulling up his t-shirt for better access.

"I don't believe this." Dean lets his head fall back with a thunk, and Sam applies himself to moving the transducer over the relevant areas, getting used to reading what he's seeing on the monitor. It's weird at first, but eventually he gets the hang of it. He's not entirely sure what he's supposed to be looking for, but after a moment he sweeps the transducer over what must be the right spot, and he points to the monitor, angling it so Dean can see.

"Check it out. In a couple of weeks, that will officially be a fetus."

Dean stares at the monitor, expression unreadable. "Huh," he says softly. "Would you look at that."

* * *

"I wish I smoked," Dean grumbles, pulling the Impala over for the third time since they left the motel. "At least then I'd have a less humiliating reason for needing a break every twenty seconds."

"Smoking is bad for the baby."

"Can it, Sam."

Dean doesn't slam the car door —he'd never do that to his baby— but Sam senses that any other car would have felt the wrath of Dean's latest mood swing. Not that he can entirely blame him. This whole situation is kind of stressful. They spent over two months doing nothing but try to figure out how to reverse the spell... curse... whatever it is, with no luck. They even back-tracked to try to locate the witch and get her to undo whatever she did, but she was long gone by the time they got back to the tiny town in which they'd found her, and had predictably not left a forwarding address. Bobby's drawn a blank, as have the handful of other people Sam has discreetly contacted without giving away that his inquiries are, in fact, about his brother.

In short, they're stuck, and as far as Sam can tell, his brother is going to have to at the very least go through the motions of being pregnant for the next six months. He's looking forward to that about as much as he'd look forward to being trapped in a tiny cage with a really hungry tiger. Possibly less than that. Dean's moods have been all over the place, more so than they usually are, and most days Sam feels as though he's walking through a minefield. The word 'hormones' is out of bounds, as it usually gets heavy objects lobbed at his head, and 'pregnant' or not, Dean still fights dirty.

"The bun giving you more trouble than usual today?" he asks with a grin.

"So help me, Sam, if you don't shut up, I will make you. For the last time, there is no 'bun,' okay?" Dean abuses the air quotes yet again, a habit he's picked up since, well, he became not-quite-pregnant-but-close-enough.

"Cheater. You know I couldn't hit a pregnant guy."

"Fuck you."

"Just go take a piss already."

Sam drums his fingers against his knee while he waits. It's not that he doesn't find the situation hilarious, in part, but he's also kind of worried about this. Sure, he's about ninety-nine percent sure that there is, in fact, no physical baby involved in this curse. All the research he's done indicates that it's just not possible. Men are not physiologically designed to carry children, and while witchcraft tends to mess with people, it also has to follow the natural order of the universe, and making a man conceive and carry a child kind of goes against every natural law Sam can think of. Still, he can't rid himself of the niggling doubt that this might be bigger than he imagines, hasn't been able to since he saw that tiny flutter on the ultrasound monitor.

It's ridiculous, is what it is. The last thing they need is nine months of this, and there's no way of telling what will happen at the end of it all. Dean is up and down like a yo-yo, and ten days ago declared that they weren't going to waste any more time on this stupid curse, that he'd just live with it until it was over ("It's just six months, right? At most! I bet you in a couple more weeks it'll wear off.") and that in the meantime they still have monsters to hunt and evil things to kill, remains to salt and burn.

Dean drops back into his seat with an exasperated huff, interrupting Sam's train of thought. "This sucks out loud. Pull out the map again, would you? I want to get this show on the road sometime this century."

* * *

Much to their mutual relief, the puking and the mood swings resolve themselves, as well as whatever else was making Dean visibly uncomfortable that he was too embarrassed to admit to Sam even under pain of torture. Before Sam can find the time to adjust and relax, though, the next thing he knows Dean is swearing loudly and volubly in the bathroom of the latest crappy motel room they've crashed in. Sam pulls his head out from under his pillow, scrubs at his face as he crawls out of bed and pads to the bathroom. Tentatively, he knocks on the door.

"Everything okay in there?"

The door is yanked open a moment later, revealing a slightly wild-eyed older brother, hair still mussed, shirtless, his jeans hanging open around his hips. His belly is protruding a little above his pelvis, and although Sam will never ever say anything because he values his life, it's actually a little cute. Dean has even taken to unconsciously laying a hand over his stomach sometimes, the way Sam has seen pregnant women do, and he secretly thinks it might be the most adorable thing he's ever seen. Not that he'll ever voice that aloud. Right now, though, Dean is looking anything but cute.

"I can't do up my fucking jeans!"

Sam blinks. It's before coffee, and way too early for this. "What?"

Dean wipes a hand over his face. "I can't. Zip up. My jeans. Are you deaf? Or has all that research finally rotted your brain?"

Sam can't quite bite back a snicker, and Dean's eyes flash dangerously.

"Oh, this amuses you?"

"Dean..." he raises his hands in surrender, but it's too late. Dean jabs a finger painfully into Sam's sternum.

"I am cursed, and spent three months puking, and now I can't fucking fit into my own damned clothes and you think this is _funny_?"

"No, I didn't—"

"Because it's not fucking funny, Sam! We're not rolling in money, last time I checked. It's not like we can afford to get new clothes for this. Or are you hiding a secret stash of cash you haven't told me about?"

"Dean..."

"Fuck you, Sam! This isn't fucking funny!"

Sam backs up, trying very hard not to laugh. "Dean, just wear your sweatpants for now. Look, I know it sucks—"

"Damn straight!"

"But it's not the end of the world. We can get you some stuff temporarily —_temporarily_, Dean!— and we can just sell it again when you're done with it, okay? Come on," he risks reaching out and putting a hand on Dean's shoulder. "Just go with it okay? We can go back, see if we can't find a way to reverse this thing, if that's what you want."

Dean sighs, rubs the back of his neck, and makes a visible effort to calm himself. "No. It's fine, I guess. We've already covered every inch of territory on this, and there's nothing to do except ride this out. Fuck." He sighs again. "Sweatpants, huh?"

Sam gives his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "We'll get you stretchy jeans."

It's almost worth the carpet burn.

* * *

"Okay," Sam nudges the door to the motel open with his hip. "I got Chinese. They didn't have the dumplings you like, but they do seem to drench everything in peanut butter sauce, and I got extra egg rolls with plum sauce, so maybe you can live with that?"

Living with Dean has been, well, exactly like living with a demanding pregnant woman, with random cravings, even more mood swings, and added bitching about the fact that none of his clothes fit right. So he's understandably a little anxious about what might be waiting for him inside. Luckily, Dean's not really looking at him, eyes glued to the television, where the strains of Rod Stewart's 'Forever Young' are wafting through the crappy speakers, accompanying the image of animals and their attendant young. Sam catches a brief glimpse of a baby elephant getting helped over a log by its mother, and a lioness and her cub before the Pampers slogan flashes on the screen and the next commercial comes on. He sets down the food on the rickety table by the door, then freezes in place, listening hard. No, he's not mistaken, that was definitely a sniffle.

"Dude, are you _crying_?"

"No," but Dean's voice is strangely tight, and Sam catches him scrubbing surreptitiously at his eyes with the edge of his sleeve.

"Oh my God," Sam can't keep the glee out of his voice. "You're crying over a diaper commercial!"

"Shut up."

Sam lets out a whoop of laughter. "Oh my God! Where is a video camera when I need one?"

"Sam, so help me!" Dean tries to shove himself a little awkwardly out of his seat, encumbered by his ever-expanding belly. "I will kick your ass, pregnant or not!"

But Sam's too far gone to stop. "We're right behind you!" he crows, preparing to dodge when Dean inevitably comes at him. "Okay, okay," he wheezes, ducking behind a chair and thanking his lucky stars that Dean isn't quite as lightning-fast as he usually is. "I'm sorry! I brought food," he extends a peace offering, then stops as Dean suddenly sways as he stands up, the colour leeching from his face. "Hey, woah," he reaches out to steady him, hanging onto his elbow. "You okay?"

Dean nods, but leans on him a little heavier than he normally would. "Head rush. Stood up too fast."

"Okay, sit," he pushes Dean back onto his bed. "Head between your knees."

"I can't bend that far," Dean grumbles, but he ducks his head obediently, as far as it'll go, relaxing under Sam's hand on his neck. "Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Is there a tissue somewhere?" Sam grabs one out of the box and hands it to him. "Um, more than one."

"You okay?"

Dean pinches his nose with a handful of tissues. "By dose is bleedigg."

"Shit, again?"

"This sugks."

Sam gives the back of his neck a squeeze. "I know. Just hang in there, we're halfway through."

Dean nods, and his breath hitches. "Dabbit. I'b fuckig cryigg for doh reasod add by dose is sdill bleedigg. Whad the fugk?"

Sam wraps an arm over his shoulder and hauls Dean against his chest, a large hand splayed over his brother's head. "It's okay," he says. "I promise not to blackmail you with this for all eternity, because I'm an awesome brother like that." He swallows hard when he catches sight of his brother's eyes, red-rimmed and shining with unshed tears, then grabs another tissue and dabs at his face. "It's a curse, right? Not your fault."

"Shit."

"Yeah, I know."

"I hade this," Dean's voice is muffled in his shirt. "I habe to pee every five bidutes, by dose keeps bleedigg, I'b dizzy add by clothes dod't fit add by face has gode all blotchy like I'b a friggig teedager agaid. By back hurts all the tibe, add I've got this weird rash add by skin is all dry, add this blows. What the fugk did I do to deserve this?"

"Women do it all the time, you know."

"Dot helpig."

"Sorry," he squeezes Dean's shoulders again, trying not to enjoy it too much when Dean relaxes against him.

But even having his brother cry in his arms doesn't prevent Sam from warbling at the top of his lungs in the car the next day. "And may you never love in vaaaaain! And in my heart you'll always remain forever young!"

"I am going to strangle you in your sleep."

"You love me."

* * *

Dean spends a week laid up, flat on his back on a bed in what is probably the shittiest motel room they have ever been in, which is saying something. The wallpaper is the vomit-coloured-green that always seems to haunt their motel rooms when there's no chance that they'll be able to leave after a day or so and never have to look at it again. The carpet is worse, because Sam is really not sure what colour it started out as, and he can't think of a colour to describe it now. He buys an electric heating pad and shoves it under Dean's back and hip, and tilts a couple of Vicodin into Dean's hand.

"Just be grateful you're not actually pregnant, because then there would be no alcohol and no awesome painkillers for you."

His brother just dry-swallows the pills and shifts miserably on the bed. "I'd kick your ass, but I can't be bothered to move right now."

"You'd just fall over anyway."

"Fuck you."

"How's your back?"

"How do you think? It fucking hurts."

Sam lowers himself on the bed, which someone somewhere thought would be a good idea to make up in puce. Even he can tell that it clashes with the wallpaper and the carpet, and the chartreuse-toned bathroom. Dean winces and hisses through his teeth as the bed dips under Sam's weight, and Sam murmurs an apology under his breath.

"Turn over," he holds up a tube of icy/hot.

"How exactly do you expect me to lie on my stomach?" Dean asks, teeth clenched.

"Just on your side. It'll help. Come on, I'll do it for you, just let me do the work, okay?" he puts one hand under Dean's bad hip and the other under his shoulder and rolls him onto his side, wincing in sympathy as his brother lets out a soft grunt of pain.

"You're torturing me on purpose."

"Shut up and let me work, okay? You should be sleeping on your left side anyway. It'll keep the pressure off your liver and be easier on your back."

"Where do you even come up with this stuff?"

"I read. Now shut up."

Dean subsides with a sigh, and shifts again when Sam drapes the electric blanket over his hip. Sam pulls Dean's t-shirt over his head, then squirts a generous amount of icy/hot on his hands and applies it to the small of his brother's back, digging his thumbs into the thick muscle there. He's rewarded with another grunt of pain at first, but slowly he feels the muscles relax as he works out the knots in his back, and he grins when Dean lets out an appreciative moan.

"Fuck that's good."

"I bet you say that to all the guys."

"Only girls, Sammy. Except you've got really big hands for a girl," Dean mutters, face mashed into his pillow. "Good hands —ow! No, don't stop, it's a good pain."

"Vicodin's kicking in, is it?"

"Fuck, yeah," Dean's slurring his words, boneless under Sam's hands. "'S awesome."

Sam grins and keeps working. This is familiar territory for him, for once. A lifetime of hunting comes with more than their fair share of strained muscles and screwed-up backs, and this is one area in which having large hands comes in handy. A few moments later, though, Dean shifts abruptly, pulling away, and turns over onto his back again.

"Did I hurt you?"

Dean shakes his head, eyes wide, and puts both hands on his stomach. "No. It's... I felt it kick."

Sam blinks. "What?"

"It kicked me. The not-baby. Tell me I'm imagining this." He grabs Sam's hand and puts it over his belly.

"Aw, dude, I don't want—" Sam starts, and then everything he was going to say just sort of slips from his mouth when he feels a tiny flutter under his hand. It's barely there, but it's definitely movement of some kind, and in spite of himself he feels a grin spread over his face. "Wow."

"I know, right?" Dean looks bemused. "It feels real."

* * *

Eventually travelling with a visibly pregnant man becomes more of a problem than even Sam imagined. Never mind that it's impossible to find clothes that fit Dean, because they don't exactly make maternity wear for men, so all his clothes hang off him funny, but it's also increasingly difficult to explain why his belly is hanging over his belt when he's obviously otherwise in excellent physical condition.

"It's a tumour," Dean quips once, only to be met with horrified stares. "What? I'm just doing what I do best until I kick the bucket."

Sam has to drag him away from their witnesses before the situation gets out of hand. "Dean, you can't say things like that!"

"Why not? It's not like I can tell them the truth."

"God," Sam buries his face in his hands and lets the matter drop, at least until the next incident.

"Oh, I'm pregnant," Dean tells the next too-inquisitive person, and Sam just about chokes on his own spit. "Baby's due in November."

"Oh my God!" Sam hauls him out by his collar, leaving flummoxed civilians in their wake. "That's it! We're not doing this anymore. We are finding a place and holing up for the next four months until this is over."

"Sam."

"No, Dean! I don't want to hear it! I don't care if there isn't actually a baby, I am not doing this! We can't explain this away, and you're not exactly in shape to be hunting. Tell me your back and legs don't hurt," he challenges, knowing full well that Dean has been getting nasty cramps in the past couple of weeks that take hours of rest and massage to get rid of. Dean shrugs, not meeting his gaze. "See? You can't sit in the car for more than an hour without your muscles seizing up, and your centre of gravity is all screwed up, and you keep having dizzy spells. No more hunting. Not until this is over or we've found a way to reverse it."

To his surprise, Dean just nods. "Yeah, okay."

"Okay?"

Dean snorts. "Yes, I said okay. Clean out your ears. Or cut your hair, I think it's soundproofing your head."

"Just like that? No arguing? No 'Sam we can't because there's evil shit out there to kill?' You're not fighting me on this?"

His brother just leans back on the side of the car. "No."

Sam stares. Opens his mouth, then closes it again.

"You're right. I'm no fucking good to anyone like this," Dean gestures disgustedly at himself. "I mean, look at me! I'm fucking huge, I have to wear the most godawful extra-large crap we can find and it all looks wrong, and nobody takes me seriously anymore. No, I mean it!" he waves a hand exasperatedly at Sam. "Have you seen the looks people give me now? Like I'm some sort of nut. That woman a few days ago patted my fucking knee and told me her husband had sympathetic pains too when she was pregnant! They think I'm a fucking head case, Sam!"

Sam swallows the hysterical laughter that threatens to bubble up in his chest. "Okay, then."

Dean drops his forehead to rest against his palm. "I can't believe this is my life. This can't be real, can it? This is not my life."

Sam doesn't know what to say to that. "You, uh, want to head to Bobby's?"

"Christ no. That's the last thing I need. No. We'll get a place outside of the smallest town you can find, and keep our heads down until this is over. Shit." He kicks disconsolately at the pavement, and Sam leans next to him against the car and pats his arm.

"All right, then. I'll find us a place."

"I can't believe this is my life."

* * *

It's not nearly as difficult as Sam thinks to find a small, out-of-the-way town where people pointedly refuse to have much to do with them. Small towns might be gossipy, but they're also pretty insular, and so he manages to squirrel Dean away in a small but sturdy house on the outskirts of town, and finds himself a job stocking the storeroom of a farming supply store where no one really talks to him much.

Dean takes to country life better than Sam would ever have thought to give him credit for. He doesn't venture out much, but he seems more relaxed than when they were on the road. It reminds Sam of the few times when Dad would rent a place for them and leave them for a few weeks at a time, sometimes longer than that. Dean, for all that he missed Dad with every fibre of his being, always relaxed more, seemed more settled, and it seems like that hasn't changed with the passage of time. For all that he bitches about his ankles being swollen ("I can't even fit into my goddamned boots, anymore! How is that fair?") and that there's nothing to do ("Seriously! There's only one channel on TV here, and shows snow half the time."), he looks, well, happy.

Sam finds him making pie late one afternoon, staggering home from a shift that had him stacking fucking heavy boxes starting at four o'clock in the morning. Dean was still asleep when he left, but he's obviously been up and doing things all day. The house is spotless —another remnant from their childhood, when Dean was in charge of keeping their households running, and kept everything so clean you could eat off the floors. Sam thinks that although Dad's military background might have had something to do with it, that Dean always took extra comfort out of making a home out of wherever they were, when it wasn't a run-down motel off some half-abandoned highway. Dean is humming under his breath, perched on a chair, his belly pressing against his thighs, peeling apples, completely focused on his task. It's bizarre, even now, to see him look like that, but he figures they only have a couple of months left of this, and he doesn't have to get used to it.

Dean glances up and doesn't bother looking embarrassed. Instead, he smiles a little self-consciously. "Hey. When d'you get back?"

"Just now," Sam slides into a chair across from the table. "Making pie, huh?"

Dean gives a one-shouldered shrug. "I had a craving. And we have too many apples. So, you know, pie made sense."

"You haven't made pie in years."

"You complaining?"

Sam laughs. "God, no. It's just... I haven't seen you like this in a while."

"You've never seen me like this," Dean wags the peeler at him. "Last time I checked, I was never cursed with a phantom pregnancy before."

"No, I meant... you look happy."

"I swear to God, if you so much as _think_ the word 'glow' I will put razor blades in your slice of pie." He tosses the last of the peels into the bucket they use for compost, then grabs a large knife and starts chopping the apples into slices with smooth, deft strokes. "You know, all the times I ever pictured myself settling down, maybe having a kid, I always imagined I'd be with a hot chick, and she'd be the one doing the whole pregnancy thing. Instead I'm the one who can't wear a pair of jeans anymore and I'm stuck in a house in the middle of hick country with my dorky brother playing the role of _pater familias_. And none of it is real, anyway."

Sam doesn't know what to say to that. "You do look kind of glowy," he offers finally, and Dean throws back his head with a bark of laughter.

"Oh, fuck you, Sam. Keep that up and I'll eat the whole pie myself. I'm eating for two, you know."

"It's not a real baby," Sam feels compelled to remind him, and Dean just shrugs.

"Whatever. It just means I get more pie."

* * *

Pregnancy, phantom or not, follows a pre-set course. Because they can't exactly bring Dean in to a doctor for check-ups, Sam appoints himself as makeshift primary caregiver, which is both fascinating from an intellectual standpoint, and completely harrowing from a personal standpoint. Dean very nearly stabs him with his glucometer when he tries to test for gestational diabetes, only submitting reluctantly and with very vocal protests the entire time. It's a similar struggle to get him to accept any other kind of check-up, including with a doppler ("It's not a real baby, Sam! Get that thing away from me or I will feed it to you!"), and even hinting at asking about physiological changes ("I cannot _believe_ you asked me about 'discharge!' I never want to hear that word coming out of your mouth ever again!") ends in disaster.

The happy glow has faded considerably in the face of end-of-third-trimester discomfort. There are all sorts of things Sam wouldn't have even thought about, like shooting pains in Dean's legs, and he's back to having to pee every five minutes, much to his annoyance. And cramps. Sam hears more about cramps than he ever has in his life, including when he was dating Jess, who was never shy about that sort of thing. In Dean's defense, he tells himself, they do sound damned painful, and he does his level best to be supportive. His suggestion of a body pillow to help Dean sleep is met with derision, but Dean spends most nights asleep in the recliner in the living room, the only spot where he seems to be able to get comfortable, catch his breath, and avoid the worst of the heartburn and indigestion.

On the whole, Dean hovers between being happy and utterly wretched, depending on how much the not-exactly-a-pregnancy is affecting him at any given time, and Sam just keeps telling himself that, sooner rather than later, this will all be over and they can go back to how things work.

About two weeks before Dean is 'due' according to all the research Sam has been able to do, he disappears. Okay, he doesn't exactly disappear, but he isn't home when Sam comes back from working an extra shift at the store, and Sam's heart immediately lodges in his throat.

"Dean?" he yells, standing at the bottom of the stairs, but there's no answer.

Okay, no need to panic, he tells himself sternly. Dean is the equivalent of eight and a half months pregnant. It's not like he can go far, his best approximation of a run these days is an awkward waddle. He starts upstairs, makes a sweep of the bedrooms, then downstairs, and even checks the cellar they never use. Eventually he finds Dean outside, sitting on the wooden fence that marks the border of the property on which their house sits, staring out at the neighbouring field, chin in his palms.

"Dean?"

Dean doesn't look up, but he does straighten a bit. "When d'you get home?"

"Just now. What's wrong?"

Dean shrugs. "Nothing."

"Sure. Because you always come out here, haul your heavy-ass self onto a fence and mope in a way that, if I were to attempt it, would have you mocking me from here to eternity," Sam swings himself up to sit next to Dean. "So spill. I'm being a terrible, terrible brother and forcing a chick-flick moment on you, because you've set the scene so beautifully."

"Nothing. I just feel like this has been going on forever. I'm fucking hot and my damn legs are swollen and they hurt, and nothing tastes right and I constantly have fucking heartburn, which I've never had in my whole life. I have to pee all the damn time, and I can't keep my balance for shit. I'm constantly tired and I've had to take naps. _Naps_, Sam!"

"Uh-huh. But that's been going on for weeks. So how about you level with me? What's really eating at you?"

He gets a snort in response. "It's stupid. I think the curse is just fucking with my head or something. It's... I don't..." he takes a deep breath, obviously steeling himself. "What if it's real?"

Sam blinks. "What?"

"What if it's real? The baby? I mean, it feels real. We saw it in the monitor, right? What if it's real? I can't... I mean I'm not..." he gestures helplessly, and for the first time Sam realizes that his brother is as scared shitless by this whole deal as he is.

"It won't be," he promises, putting his arm over Dean's shoulders. "It's just a curse. The only thing that's real is how you're feeling. It's a lousy curse, and I know how miserable it's made you, but it'll be over in a couple of weeks. Promise. We'll put all this behind us, and you'll never have to think of it again."

Dean shrugs. "It's not all bad," he concedes. "It was kind of nice to take a break."

"That's the spirit," Sam makes a sweeping gesture with his free arm. "Think of it as a really uncomfortable sabbatical. Now, you think you can get down on your own, 'cause I really don't want to lift you. I'll get a hernia."

Dean cuffs his head, and he ducks, laughing, and slides to the ground, then puts his arms out to catch his brother as he jumps down to join him.

* * *

It's very, very dark when Sam is awoken by Dean frantically shaking him by the arm.

"Sam! For fuck's sake wake up!"

"Wha'?" he sits up groggily, and squints at the bedside alarm clock. "It's one o'clock in the morning. What's wrong?"

"Um... IthinkI'minlabour?" the words come out all in a rush, and his brother manages to make it sound like a question on top of it all. Sam is instantly awake.

"What? How do you know?"

"Um." Dean looks down at the sweatpants he's wearing, which are soaked through, with a slightly panicked expression. "Don't ask, I can't begin to explain this. Was this supposed to happen? I thought it would just kind of, you know, go away after nine months, except that it's not and... oh, God!" he catches himself with one hand on the edge of Sam's bed, the other arm wrapped around his stomach. "Holy fuck that hurt," he breathes.

"Okay," Sam tries to collect his thoughts. "So I guess the curse includes the whole 'labour pains' part of it."

"No shit!" Dean snarls, still doubled over. "Oh, fuck. Sam, tell me I am not going to have to find some way of delivering a baby in a body that's not anatomically designed for it!"

"You're not," Sam says quickly, though he can feel doubt eating away at him, eroding the edges of his confidence. "Come on, let's get you set up on your bed, and I'll find some of those really awesome painkillers for you."

He grabs his brother by the arm, wraps an arm around his waist, and helps him back into his bedroom, propping him up with pillows and yanking the bedclothes completely off.

"What're you doing?"

"Clearing some space. How far apart are your contractions?"

Dean glares. "I don't know, Sam! I was too busy being in excruciating fucking pain to pull out my stopwatch!"

"Okay, okay. Sorry I asked. We'll time the next ones."

"What's this 'we' shit? Last time I checked, you're not the one who weighs a hundred extra pounds!"

Sam rolls his eyes. "I'm going to go get you some ice."

He retreats down the stairs, only to have Dean's voice follow him. "That ice better be laced with Vicodin!"

Okay. Sam takes a breath, makes himself focus. He's researched this, watched the YouTube videos (and is accordingly scarred for life), and he's prepared for this. He grabs the spiral notebook in which he's written down everything he thinks might be relevant for a delivery that won't actually result in a baby, as well as the checklist of items he'll need, throwing them into a tote bag to take upstairs. He fills a bowl with ice, grabs a few towels from the bathroom, wets a washcloth in the sink, and heads back to find Dean doubled over on the bed again, sweat beading on his forehead. He sits down next to him, takes the washcloth and wipes Dean's face with it.

"How bad's the pain? One to ten, don't lie."

"Seven," Dean makes a grab for the bottle of pills in Sam's other hand. "Hand over the damn pills, bitch!"

"Easy," Sam doles out two pills, and takes note of the time on the digital alarm clock on Dean's night stand. "I don't want you overdosing just yet. We might be here for a while."

"What do you mean a while?" Dean moans.

"Do you even listen when I talk?"

"Honestly, you kind of fade out after a while, like the teachers on Charlie Brown."

Sam rolls his eyes. "You know, this is your body we're talking about. How is it that I know more about what's supposed to happen to it than you do?"

Dean grins at him. "But research makes you so happy! Who am I to deny you that?"

"Listening to me when I sum up what I've been reading doesn't deny me anything, and then I wouldn't have to spring the news on you that a first labour usually lasts about sixteen hours."

"Sixteen hours?" Dean comes off the bed, which is quite a feat for him at this point. "You're fucking with me!"

"It might be less. I mean, a third of that is the transition and the delivery of the placenta, and that doesn't apply to you. And there are reports of some women giving birth inside an hour."

Dean's eyes are so wide they've practically swallowed his entire face. "Please tell me I'm not going to have to put up with this for sixteen hours. I will _die_, Sam, I swear to God!"

"You won't die. And it might not be sixteen hours, like I said. I just can't judge how close you are, or whatever, because, well, not to put too fine a point on it, you don't have a cervix."

"Oh God."

"Contraction?"

Dean stares up at the ceiling. "This is not happening."

* * *

"This has to be your fault somehow," Dean moans, hanging on to Sam's hand so tightly that Sam is a little worried he'll cut off his circulation.

"Oh, like that's fair."

"How is it fucking fair that I have been in fucking labour for five fucking hours when I'm not even really fucking pregnant?"

Sam squirms as Dean threatens to break his fingers or maybe dislocate his knuckles at the very least, manages to loosen his grip a bit, then offers him some more ice chips. The painkillers are working, but they're only good for taking the edge off. Whatever else this curse is doing, it's making sure that Dean's going to feel every single magical moment of delivering a baby.

"That's a lot of fucking in the same sentence, Dean. Maybe you should wait a day or so before engaging in that sort of activity."

"Fuck you, you're not fucking funny. Oh, fuck!" Dean crushes Sam's fingers again and rolls on his side on the bed with a whimper. Sam pats his arm.

"Come on, breathe through it. If I suggest Lamaze are you going to hit me?"

"Maybe. Will it help?"

"It's pretty much exactly the same technique Dad showed us for breathing through pain. Come on, just match your breathing to mine, and we'll get through this, okay?"

Dean nods, teeth gritted, his whole face screwed up with pain. He doesn't relinquish his grip on Sam's hand, and stays curled up on his side. Since there's no actual baby to deliver, Sam doesn't see the need to make him sit up, just does is best to coach him through the breathing when the contractions hit —increasingly close together, he notes— feeds him ice chips and wipes his face. He's kind of at a loss, if he's honest with himself. It's not like there's a manual to help out for when your brother's been cursed to experience an entire phantom pregnancy, and he's just praying to every god he can think of that the curse will just expend all its energy before something worse happens to Dean than, well, labour pains.

"Jesus Christ," Dean moans into his pillow. "It's not real, is it? I can't fucking give birth to a kid, Sam! It's bigger than a fucking bowling ball, and that one time I had a kidney stone I thought I was gonna die."

"It's not real," Sam rubs circles on his back. "You just have to ride out the pain, that's all. Just a little longer."

"How much longer?"

"I don't know, it's not like this came with an instruction manual."

"I'm not doing this, you hear me? This isn't fucking humanly possible. I don't want this! I don't!"

Sam bites his lip. "I know, I know. If I could make it go away, I would, I swear."

"I can't do this! I can't! I don't want it, Sam, please!"

"Shh," Sam smooths a hand over his forehead. "I know. Just a little bit longer, okay? Hang in there."

Dean swears as another contraction hits, baring his teeth in pain, and Sam just keeps rubbing his back, feeling entirely useless. He tries taking notes until Dean threatens to feed him his notebook whole, or, failing that, to shove it into an even more painful orifice if he doesn't put the damn thing away. So he tries to make himself useful by bringing water and pills and the jello cups he's been saving for just this occasion, although he comes close to wearing one of the jello cups permanently.

By the time eight hours have gone by Dean has stopped even attempting to be coherent, and all that's coming out of his mouth is a string of swear words each more filthy than the last. He's drenched in sweat, tendons standing out in his neck, face red with exertion, head thrown back and digging into the pillows Sam has stacked behind him, panting and shaking and moaning. Sam rubs his arm.

"You're doing real good, Dean. Just breathe through it, and, uh, try to push."

Dean directs a furious glare at him. "Nothing to push, Sam!" he manages, voice strangled.

"I know. Just... pretend, would you? Your contractions are really close, so that means you have to push, more or less. Come on, you're nearly done. Just push, and then you'll be done, I promise," he lies rashly.

"Oh, God!"

But Dean does as he's told, breathing as best he can through the pain, and Sam lets him crush both his hands, if that's what it'll take to get him through this. He's halfway tempted to just knock Dean out until it's all over, but something tells him it wouldn't be that easy. With their luck, Dean would probably just have to go through it all again. Dean grabs onto his shoulders with both hands, fingers digging in hard enough to leave bruises, breathing so hard he's almost hyperventilating, and Sam just holds on for dear life, figuring that at this point there's nothing left to do but let whatever is meant to happen happen.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Dean relaxes against him with a sigh of relief, still breathing hard but with none of the desperation of before. He slumps in Sam's arms, eyes closing, and Sam squeezes his shoulders.

"Better?" he asks quietly.

"Hm."

"I'll take that as a yes. Come on, let's get you settled. You'll be good as new once you've had some sleep."

"'kay, Sammy," Dean murmurs, not letting go. He hangs on with a death grip until Sam resigns himself to just laying the both of them back down on the damp bed and waiting for sleep to claim them.

* * *

When Sam opens his eyes, it's still light out. He pushes himself up onto an elbow, blinking sleepily, and finds Dean lying next to him, curled up and facing the wall. There's no sign at all of the past nine months, not a single physical trace on Dean's body, the curse having obviously run its course. For a moment everything is utterly, eerily still. Then Sam hears Dean's breath hitch, ever so slightly.

"Dean?" he reaches out, wraps and arm around Dean's waist.

His brother's voice is wrecked, but he shifts closer into Sam's arms.

"Turns out I wanted it after all," he says softly.


End file.
